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Replies to: What school was unexpectedly your least favorite when you visited?
D really didn't like U Richmond when she and H visited. On paper, it was near the top of her list, but once she visited it fell completely off the list and she never applied. Reasons cited revolved mostly around the pre-professional atmosphere (insert favorite accountant joke here), and that the only minorities she saw were all sitting together at one table in the lunch room-she said it didn't feel inclusive enough to her. I respected that, but still sigh when I think about their amazing graduation rates and job placement rates.
So many things about the school were quite impressive but my daughter couldn't get past the things above and it shot straight to the bottom of her list. She did send an application, but literally forgot about it and never mentioned the school again.
So funny! We are Chicago area people and that is our nickname for Notre Dame! The Cult!
Obviously, the people who love it, really, really love it. Forever. For generations.
But that's what makes these threads interesting and entertaining, to realize that we all have different perspectives!
SUNY - Stony Brook
Georgetown
Temple
It happens more than you think.
Worst for D18 so far was UW (Univ Washington). She is leaning heavily to SLACs and I wanted her to see a big school with a great reputation- academics and campus beauty- and Seattle is a lovely city. She was in a BAD mood when we headed toward campus. Lots of people and traffic. She literally refused to go on the tour. Too big she said, No way. I was bummed, I (me personally) wanted to see more of the campus. It's a great school, great location, beautiful facilities!
Thinking for a split second I was on Facebook and not CC, I reached for the "Wow!" button....
Never happened to us, but I'm sure if it did, it would definitely have had an effect!
I also didn't love the BU tour. The presentation was great! But the tour itself--well, I couldn't hear anything over the traffic despite the guide wearing a mic. The tour groups stopped too close to each other so you could hear both guides (or 3) talking but couldn't understand any of them. Our guide also looked depressed or like he hates his job so that didn't help either. But my D's both liked the school enough to apply.
Also, our first Wellesley tour was awful! Very intimidating and the guide walked so fast she left some family's grandparents behind. There was a German family on our tour and our guide started speaking German to them (even though they spoke English). It was simultaneously impressive and very off putting because it went on forever and the rest of us were just standing there waiting. It seemed showoff to us and made us feel "OMG we so don't fit in here" but I'm sure that family appreciated it. There were other families dressed very expensively with coifed mothers doing the tour in high heels and dresses. I had my sneakers and Target t-shirt. Subsequent tours have been great, my D enrolled, so that's where it is. Most people there speak a second language fluently. Give second chances.
D14 and I were totally underwhelmed when we first saw American (don't remember the details of the tour, just the first impression). All these kind of squat odd buildings built around a bland quad. Felt this way the first two times I saw it and my daughter did too. She ended up choosing it because it offered a lot of what she wanted and gave her the best money to attend. She's a junior and now when we visit we love it and I can't remember why I didn't find it attractive.
D16 and I visited Lafayette at the end of a long driving tour that took us to some lovely LACS in New York and PA. We drove into Easton late at night, tired out and found the city sketchy. The hotel was in an area with lots of either empty or junky kind of stores and the hotel parking lot had those blades at the entrance I've only until then seen in rental car lots that don't let you back up once you enter. We went out to dinner and then stopped by a CVS where after we left we both admitted we kept waiting for someone to pull out a gun. We were so beat from the past days we almost skipped the tour the next day but so glad we didn't. We both loved the campus, the vibe and the area around the campus on the hill. And when DD got a sudden, very unexpected scholarship at the very last minute, we drove back down, this time with DH, and not only did we still love everything about the school, but, you guessed it, this time we found Easton to be quirky but fun and safe. Granted it was a year later and Easton really has been making great progress recently, but I think it was equally if not more our mindset that had changed. D16 picked Lafayette over a lot of other schools which gave her equally good financial packages and I've rarely seen someone so happy at a college.
I should add that we really only visited colleges we thought might be good fits for both girls to begin with, and which we had researched considerably in advance - so no big surprises on any schools. Still, for both girls if you had told me in March of their senior years that they would be going to American and Lafayette respectively, I would have been pretty surprised....
Although I picked UVa as the one school that was unexpectedly our least favorite, I have to give a shoutout to Harvard for exceptional achievement in the category of being disappointing to us.
This was 3 summers ago and my D and I found the video they showed at the beginning to be really, really condescending. It featured current Harvard students, including a young Latina woman at home on the farm where she grew up and her non-English speaking parents/grandparents were featured. The dialogue was something about the doors that Harvard was opening for her, but it came off really badly - as if Harvard were saving her from a rural and primitive way of life (there was livestock and cooking involved). It seemed to be trafficking in stereotypes. Also in it was and alum named "Matt," identified by his first name and his class year, speaking about his Harvard experience and we could tell how clever they thought they were being because they never used his last name (Damon). My D wanted to bolt as soon as the lights came up and the AO speaker for the day (white man in khakis and blue blazer, straight out of central casting) but I convinced her to stay to see how much worse it could get.
Good times.
Love this thread.
Special dishonorable mention to Duke. Split campus, not in a city but not in a college town - the worse of both worlds. Why would anyone want to be referred to as a Dukie - no wonder they are miserable.
Holy Cross - again its location in Worcester makes it somewhat less desirable.